


Missed Each Other

by MediumSizedFountain (jncar)



Category: Timeless (TV 2016)
Genre: F/M, Originally Posted on Tumblr, Soulmate-Identifying Timers, Soulmates, Time Travel, Unrequited, but this version is lightly edited, inspired by a tumblr post
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-17
Updated: 2018-05-17
Packaged: 2019-05-08 07:06:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,382
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14689023
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jncar/pseuds/MediumSizedFountain
Summary: A soulmate timer AU featuring Future-Lucy giving the journal to Flynn.





	Missed Each Other

**Author's Note:**

> This was a short fic written stream of consciousness as a response to a post on qqueenofhades tumblr. Find me on tumblr as mediumsizedfountain - warning, I am very random and very multi-fandom. The original post is here: http:// mediumsizedfountain. tumblr. com/ post/ 173743161771/ lol-i-was-sort-of-thinking-like-a-more-idk

As Lucy’s timer is nearing the countdown to zero, she is busy working on the final draft of her first book. As the timer reaches the last five hours she debates if she should keep working in her apartment, or if she should go someplace more public (because there is no way her soulmate will just knock on her apartment door, right?).

So she heads to the university library and sits in a more public spot than she would normally be inclined to choose, sets up her laptop, and gets back to work. (Sure, she’s meeting her soulmate today, but that’s no excuse to miss her deadline for the book.)

After checking the timer compulsively for the first hour, she covers it with the long sleeve of her sweater and vows not to look at it again. When the guy (or girl - she’s very open to that possibility) shows up, she’ll know it, won’t she?

She lets her mind get sucked into her work, and falls into an editing trance that carries her through a major section of the draft. This is the best work she’s done in weeks. As she finishes the section with a pleased smile, she looks up and sees that the sky outside the window is growing dark. Wait a minute… how long has it been?

Hastily she pushes up her sweater and stares, dumbfounded, at the zeroed out timer on her wrist. How long has it been like that? When did it happen? At the moment, she’s completely alone. She walks around, and there is no one nearby. Did they also not notice it happening? Surely they’ll notice and retrace their steps. Surely someone will come back and hold up their wrist and say, “Were you here all afternoon? Can I check your timer?”

She waits until the library closes for the night. No one comes.

She feels sick to her stomach.

For days afterward, it’s impossible to work. She barely wants to get out of her bed. There are only three possibilities: 1 - they missed each other. And now have no way to find each other. 2 - her soulmate took one look at her, decided they wanted nothing to do with her, and left. Or 3 - she has no soulmate. Her timer was defective, or wanted her to know that her true soulmate is her academic calling.

Eventually she mentally settles on option 3. It’s the only choice that brings her any comfort. And, in truth, she does love her work.

Even so, a nagging part of her never lets go of that question - of that disappointment - of that regret.

***

On the same day that Lucy sits for hours in a library, thousands of miles south, in Sao Paulo, Brazil, Garcia Flynn sits in a bar, alone, desperate.

He knew Lorena wasn’t his soulmate. Both of their timers had years left to go when they met. But he loved her. He loved her deeply and truly and intensely, and he never gave a damn what the timer said. Neither did she.

They’d been so happy.

And now? He clutches his drink in rage and sorrow, and wonders, again, if there is any more point in carrying on? Perhaps he’d be happier if he gave up. If he joined his wife and child in heaven. God would surely understand and let them be together, wouldn’t He?

He’s noticed in passing that his timer, at long last, is almost down to zero. He no longer gives a damn. In fact, he pities whatever poor Brazilian woman is about to sit down next to him, her own wrist displaying a row of zeroes, a hopeful smile on her face. But still he sits.

He’ll warn her of the futility of love. Of the impossibility of ever finding true happiness again. And then he’ll tell her to make her own future, instead of trusting in fate.

It is not a Brazilian woman who sits beside him.

She says his name like she’s spoken the word thousands of times. She knows him – knows his pain. Knows his rage. Knows the full depth of the love he lost.

And she knows Rittenhouse.

A desperate and terrible electricity fills him, stoking the fire of his vengeance. He sees it in her eyes – that same fire is inside of her.

She says that with her help, he can end Rittenhouse forever. And she gives him a journal.

As their fingers brush when he takes the book, that intense electricity strikes him again. He sees her eyes fixate on his timer, which is just now dropping from 1 second, to zero.

But it can’t be – this beautiful, dreadful, vengeance-filled American with her wild tale of time machines and conspiracies – she can’t possibly be the  _one,_ can she?

She smiles a sad sort of smile when she sees him staring back and forth at his timer and her face.

She shakes her head. “Mine turned to zero most of a decade ago. We missed each other, my soulmate and me. It’s probably for the best.”

And yet, something in her tone feels forced. Like this is the first lie she’s told him.

She quickly stands and tells him that he is holding everything he needs to take down Rittenhouse. She turns to leave, and he catches her wrist, once again feeling that potent electricity. “Wait. What’s your name?” he asks, though he’s not sure why.

Her expression softens. “Lucy. My name is Lucy.” She gently tugs her wrist free. But before she leaves, she says the most puzzling thing of all. “When you see me again, don’t tell me what that book says. I won’t be ready for at least a year. Okay?”

Without waiting, she turns on her heels and strides out the door.

He sits in baffled silence for a few minutes before remembering the numbers on his wrist. He glances around for any women who look as if they are trying to sneak a peak at all the wrists around them, but sees no one.

They missed each other. It’s probably for the best - his thoughts echo Lucy’s words.

He opens the journal. The first page contains only three sentences. The first gives today’s date. The others: “In the library when time ran out. We missed each other.”

He stares at those words for a long time before turning the page, and quickly they recede in his mind as he sees laid out before him the map to his revenge. And to his family’s salvation.

***

It isn’t until Lucy confronts Garcia about how he got the journal that she begins to wonder. He mentioned once before that Lorena wasn't his soulmate, but his timer has been at zero for as long as she's known him. By the time they finish their conversation, she feels it deep in her gut.

But she needs proof. Late in the night she digs into the file cabinets and searches – finally finding what she was looking for. Garcia Flynn’s old file.

She flips it open, and two pages in she finds it. The date of his family’s death. About two weeks before the day her timer spun down to zero. About the same time he would have been in a bar in Brazil, meeting her for the first time; an older her from a future that hasn’t yet been written.

And she knows.

Her timer worked just fine – it was just sensing a different sort of meeting. One the timers were never meant to account for. And yet…

She  _knows._

She doesn’t tell him. Not yet.

They both need a little more time.

***

When she is finally ready, she will seek him out in his room, late in the evening, as has become her habit.

She will tell him the date that her timer ran down to zero, and how alone and lost she felt. And she will tell him that she was in the library, and that she and her soulmate missed each other.

His heart will leap in a way it never has before, and he will remember the lines on the first page of the journal, and the electricity he felt when she gave it to him. Then he will know, just as Lucy knows, that they didn't miss each other, after all.

 

The End


End file.
